The Only Girl in the Game by John D. MacDonald

Betty Dawson.”
    He had placed his hands gently on the nimble, narrow waist. “Very sincerely yours. Hugh Darren. His mark.”
    “Let me draw a picture first, darling. I like you much. So I give me to this liking of you, and so let’s just have it for joy. We’ll indulge ourselves with a pleasure thing, Hugh. Without angles or tensions. We take what’s here, with gladness and respect, and we stay proud of what we are, and nobody has to own or dominate anybody, ever, because we’re grown up and we don’t need that.”
    “Can it be done that way, Betty? Is it possible?”
    “I don’t know. But if it isn’t, I think we can come as close as anybody. And if it starts to turn into anything else, into the kind of thing neither of us are looking for, then we knock it right in its pretty head and bury it under stones.”
    “Agreed, sure, but isn’t that kind of a thing much more advantageous for the man?”
    “The man? The woman? We start, buddy, by not typecasting ourselves. We’re Hugh and Betty, and there isn’t any rule says we can’t make up our own rules. And this room is warm now, and this is a mouth to be kissed, and these little round things are an interesting invention called buttons, which will yield to a clever man. And there are a zipper and snaps and things which should cause no terrible problems, and that thing over there is a rustic bunk. And my darn knees feel as if they could bend either way, and my heart would give Gene Krupa a feeling of awe, and if you wanted any coy, shy little thing, brother, you came to the wrong store, and I have the feeling we’ve waited just about long enough.”
    It began then, in crescendo, and it kept right on from that explicit starting point, becoming better for them in the same ratio that they were apt students of each other, each so much more intent on the giving than on the taking of their pleasure that it became different from anything they had ever experienced.
    He sat at her side as she slept so soundly in his bed, thinking of this little-more-than-a-month of their love-making. They conspired, in shameless ingenuity, but with no overtones of coarseness, to find every opportunity to be together. If it could be hours, they took them gladly, and if there were only minutes, they could make do with minutes. It was, he knew, obsessional and compulsive with them, but with none of the dark overtones he had always thought went with intensively physical affairs. There were sly laughter, and rude ridiculous jokes, and only the very slightest easily ignored suspicion of guilt. Nor did this sweet excess drain his vitality or hamper his work. It gave him, instead, a vibrant, bounding feeling of fitness and capacity. The work was easier for him. And, whenever he could watch her act, he knew that it was doing the same for her.
    It would, he thought, be a nice thing if she was always here, if I had her for always. Wherever I might go. Watch it, boy! It isn’t what she wants. She said so. We defined the limits of this thing, and if you try to own her she will suddenlybe long gone, and it will become a damned drab world around here.
    He stood and lifted the corner of the covers, and slid in beside her, leaving the small light on, finding her sleeping lips with his. As he felt her lips wake up and her drowsy arms move to encircle him, he made the little adjusting moves that brought her long against him. He relaxed against the fragrant, sleep-warm, silken length of Betty Dawson, with her little murmur of contentment that went with the kiss, and her little languorous flexings to the slow stimuli of his hands, and the quickening pace of her breath as her arms grew more strong.…
    She had nuzzled into his throat and she could tell from the slow rise and fall of his chest that he was now asleep. His heart, so very fast not long ago, was now a slow, heavy, comforting sound to her.
    “Darling, darling, darling,” she said in the smallest whisper, and felt the tears welling, sliding out